Salt River project goes public; massive estuary restoration plan could start in 2011
John Driscoll
Times-Standard
04/20/2010
An ambitious plan to rebuild a tributary of the lower Eel River has reached a milestone as it is unveiled to the public.
Planning for the Salt River restoration project has been in the works for decades and is the result of a dogged effort by Ferndale area dairy farmers and local, state and federal agencies. That determination will be needed to see the massive project to an end, but supporters are calling the recent release of a draft environmental document a significant movement.
The Salt River is not much of a river anymore. Where schooners once moved upstream to Port Kenyon to take on dairy products, the river is now hardly more than a willow-choked ditch, filled in with silt from Francis, Reas and Williams creeks and separated from the tides that move in and out of the Eel River delta. Flooding on hundreds of acres has been persistent and has even interfered with the proper disposal of Ferndale's wastewater.
Now, an end is in sight. If designing and permitting goes as hoped, the first phase of the project could begin in 2011.
”It's exciting that it's moving forward, and we've just had tremendous collaboration,” said Humboldt County Resource Conservation District Executive Director Donna Chambers. “There have been a lot of people working on this for a long time.”
The project is divided into four parts. Wetlands and uplands on the California Department of Fish and Game's 444-acre Riverside Ranch -- at the junction of the Salt and Eel rivers -- would be partly reopened to open water and salt marsh, while some 63 acres would continue to be grazed to provide a feeding area for Aleutian cackling geese.
An enormous channel restoration effort is being proposed for the Salt River and lower Francis Creek, with other improvements on Williams, Coffee and Reas creeks, according to the draft environmental impact report.
Excavation of a new channel from Riverside Ranch to 425 feet upstream of the Williams Creek and Salt River confluence is expected to help transport sediment out of the river and allow salmon to run up the Salt River.
At the upper end of the Salt River, a combination of channel restoration, streamside planting, bank stabilization, livestock fencing and improvements to road drainage are aimed at stemming the release of sediment into the lower Salt. The lower channel, according to the document, would have to be maintained over the years.
Effects of the project on sensitive habitat, protected species and other wildlife are expected to be mitigated by measures outlined in the draft EIR. The document does acknowledge that the restoration would create habitat not just for salmon, but also for invasive pike minnow, a major problem on the Eel River already.
While a host of local, state and federal agencies have been working with the Resource Conservation District over the years, helping guide the design of the project, it will still have to go through a daunting permitting process. Among the biggest hurdles, said Hank Seeman, Humboldt County Department of Public Works Environmental Services manager, is the California Coastal Act. The act doesn't treat restoration projects any differently than development projects, he said, and requires that a project doesn't harm coastal values.
”There's really a high bar to do changes of this magnitude,” Seeman said.
